[lmm]

Financiers are perfectly happy to value things quite abstractly. I mean, you can buy CDS on Kazakhstan - that is, insurance on bonds that don't exist. And they trade, at reasonably stable prices.

Exactly how much is in this year's dividend doesn't really matter most of the time - if they pay a penny less this year that's one more penny in their vaults for them to pay out next year (or invest in the business and pay out further down the line). I mean, what else are they going to do with it? (The exception is generally poorly managed companies who might waste the penny instead - and in those cases activists often can dramatically increase the price by encouraging the company to pay a big dividend right now and keep less cash in the bank).

But the dividends are where the rubber meets the road, the foundation on which any valuation ultimately rests. And in the long run companies either die or become the kind of stable, dividend-paying stock that makes less headlines and is valued pretty directly on PE that actually makes up most of the market.